Railroading on the linear plot wagon

[Sorren]

I write modules for my own campaign, and I've stumbled upon a formula that works well.

DO NOT write things out in step-by-step format. Instead, figure out what your villians intend to do, and how they intend to do it. If you know what their plans are, you'll know how to handle it when the PCs screw them up.

Now that you know what the bad guys are doing, you need a few different ways to get the PCs involved. Then let them do the work for you. Just make sure you can drop some clues so that they don't get stuck trying to figure out what to do next. If you must plan out an event, always try to allow for three different methods of accomplishing a task, each with their own consequences.

And here is where I go off on a tangent...

I HATE RE-OCCURING VILLIANS! They are a wonderful plot device to be sure, but if you are going to use them, you'd better be willing to loose them. Never assume your villian will get away. I've been in two games recently where the DM was trying to save a villian from death at the hands of smart PCs. Nothing is more frustrating than knowing that there is NOTHING you can do to keep him from getting away. The DM kept "fudging", to the point of rediculousness, until the villian finally escaped. it was painfully obvious, and very frustrating to the players.

My advice is to have a backup villian. Every good villian has a master or apprentice. If you write an adventure where the villian needs to escape, you need a good back door if for some reason the PCs manage to stop him. Don't make it impossible for the PCs.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I would agree that any sort of published module is railroading to some degree, yes. In the sense there is an adventure path and a "plan".

But people use "railroading" in the pejorative sense and I don't think that's fair. I think it belies a deep-seated bias against pre-planned adventures of any sort. Its an inherently biased term.

Which is like saying..there's railroading and then there's railroading.

I think it all comes down to the style the DM prefers and the style the players prefer and/or have come to accept.

Some DMs are brilliant improv guys and can make it seem like they have the plot all perfectly worked out with 20 seconds of prep. Ceramic DM paragons.

But in my experience, even the best of those DMs is fallible - and few on-the-spot plans will survive contact with the players, to paraphrase Napoleon.

One of the things I like about pre-planned adventures is the ability to make an extremely complex plot, foreshadow it many sessions ahead at a time - here and there - and show up with handouts and battlemaps & "cool stuff" and develop an overall mystery and greater plot & epic puzzle to be figured out by the players.

My group seems to appreciate the work that goes in to it. I certainly enoy doing it - its more fun and creative for *me*. My circle is mostly all 20+ years RPG vets and pre-planned adventures do not at all seem incongruous and controlling to them.

Like all things - it's a matter of style. A best of both worlds approach, by ad-libbing the unforeseen and making it all fit into the over all plan seamlessly is my preferred route. When a DM can do it all so seamlessly and so well that you cannot tell where the intricate pre-planned craft stopped and the clever improv begins - that's the sign of a very good DM.

So - is it safe to say that every module removes player control and limits player choice? I don't think so. I think if a group's style meshes and the DM is able to lead the players into a pre-planned module properly and well so that it integrates as a whole into the campaign - that's ideal. The DM papers over the holes and flaws in the plan wherever it meets contact with the unpredictable during play & keeps it on track so that everyone's having fun...

How well the campaign is crafted is very much a matter od how well each adventure flows to the next, so that it does not seem to be one module stitched on to the next, but a seamless flowing whole.

And that's not a "railroad" in the pejorative sense to me.

YMMV

 

[jmucchiello]

I've been considering the Campaign setting as module idea and it is an idea I've thought about doing before. You create a bunch of NPCs the party will eventually encounter (or not). Give them motivations such that a good number of them want something to occur. Plot the event to occur after a suitable about of time after the party has stumbled into the plans. Eventually, the party has to stop the ending event from occuring. None of the NPCs are required by to live to the end of the campaign as long as one of them is still alive.

Problems with writing it:
1) It ends up being NPCs and a bunch of set pieces with nothing in between. Some people would balk at having to add filler to give the story life.
2) You need to stat the villains at multiple levels so any of them can fill in for the others at certain railroad points.

Other thoughts I had were to create more than one of these kinds of adventure and suggest the DM mix and match them. Then from the players' point of view there are several unrelated subthemes to the campaign. Write one for 1-10th level and another for 5-15th level. Hope the DM can weave them together well.

But would it sell, is always the question.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Isle of Dread
Keep on the Borderlands
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

... all "settings that happen to include a dungeon".

Love 'em.

 

[Henry]

I think biggusgeekus is onto the same railroad track I am. My preference is for an "encounter matrix" style of module, a la the old classics like Keep on the Borderlands and Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Only in a very few places MUST the PC's do a certain thing. At all other times, the dungeon sections are described as "this chieftain is aiming for these goals" and "this minotaur only wants food however he can get it, and he works with these people to get it"; Or, this lich only wants to be left alone and sulk, and will blast anyone who disturbs him to atoms, but only if they don't leave", etc.

On the other end of the tracks, we get something like the setups in "For Duty and Deity", which is a module that WILL begin with talking to a Priest, and WILL end with **

Spoiler

freeing a deity

**. The staircase, the stops on the way, etc. WILL happen - there's little provision that they won't happen in the order given.

Another example is the DL1 Module Dragons of Despair; I LOVED reading the dragonlance series, but I could not play those modules, because they unfolded EXACTLY like the books did. It was a style of play that didn't go over well with their fans, as I understand it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Amen, Henry. I love modules set up in the style of B2 -- set the stage and then let the players' choices determine what happens.

Player's don't really need true free will, just the appearance of it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Another example is the DL1 Module Dragons of Despair; I LOVED reading the dragonlance series, but I could not play those modules, because they unfolded EXACTLY like the books did. It was a style of play that didn't go over well with their fans, as I understand it.

This would not be accurate. DL1 and DL2 - yes. But that's because the book is *based* on the group that played the module. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is inherently a blow by blow of the main paths of those 2 modules. But "exactly" - no.

In later modules in the DL series, the module to novel tracking breaks off greatly.

There are a lot of problems with DL1 and DL2 and metagaming issues - but inherently, it need not be a railroad any better or worse than any other module.

If there is a problem among DL DMs and DL palyers both - it's a refusal to depart from characterizations and events in the novels and make a clean break to create your own DL world with its own assumptions and outcomes.

Trust me a little on this one - I've spent 2 years redesigning DL1 to get rid of metaga ming.

 

[Henry]

DL1 and DL2 - yes. But that's because the book is *based* on the group that played the module. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is inherently a blow by blow of the main paths of those 2 modules. But "exactly" - no.

To use one example, the Crystal Staff, and it's purpose in the end of DL1. TO use another, the flight from Solace in the first of the module. The "speaking parts" you are supposed to give your players.

I'll admit, DL4 and further relaxed the descriptions - there was no trek through Thorbardin intimately detailed like in DL4, BUT the PC's weren't leaving without the Hammer of Kharas, and if they did they were screwed. That Hammer plays a pivotal role in the whole series, and it doesn't matter if the Companions of the Lance or the Legion of Substitute Super-heroes coming out with it, events will still happen. That level of redsign of a module is unfavorable to me. I'd rather as a DM have a nice locale setup, and come up with my own threads that join them together chronologically.

(Personal pet peeve for DL4: Good God, I wish they had come up with something better than blocks of identical Dwarven Stonework! That was a rather interesting cop-out, to me.)

In later modules in the DL series, the module to novel tracking breaks off greatly.

Oh, I agree - Dragons of (Light?) for example, is better, but in most of the ones I had and remember, the outcomes were still painted in very specific strokes.

If there is a problem among DL DMs and DL palyers both - it's a refusal to depart from characterizations and events in the novels and make a clean break to create your own DL world with its own assumptions and outcomes.

That's why I LOVED the DLA hardcover. Screw the companions, get 'em out of there, I wanted my OWN adventures with my players at the helm. The problem with saying the fans "couldn't make a clean break", is that with the DL modules, there seemed to be a premise at the time within TSR that fans would WANT to play out the adventures exactly as unfolded. The Modules were written ASSUMING this. I still just couldn't see it happening though; if we fans wanted that, we'd have just staged the Dragonlance Musical Play. (Now THAT I would go to see!)

 

[Prince of Happiness]

Isle of Dread
Keep on the Borderlands
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

... all "settings that happen to include a dungeon".

Love 'em.

Secret of Bone Hill was another great one for this. I've always called them "hub" modules and when creating adventures for the game, I always seek to move with this in mind. Adding a timeline for NPC events (where applicable, thanks to PC action/inaction), and...yeah. Awesome stuff!

 

[moticon]

This is a great thread. I've enjoyed reading it because I've been doing a lot of thinking about this same problem lately.

I think I'm a decent DM, I design adventures that have been enjoyed by all and the game sessions are fun and amicable, with lots of challenges. However, I have felt recently that I'd like to find a way to balance my desire to be well prepared against the natural result that you tend to need the PC's to go to where you're ready for them to go.

So I decided on a compromise of sorts. It will take more work, but in the end I think it will be worth it. The current campaign is the basic "find multiple peices to a make something that will accomplish a goal." Originally I had planned out the entire thing, but now what I'm doing is more compartmentalized :

1 ) I'm mapping out where each item is, and roughly what the surrounding characters, environs, and motiviations are for that part of the puzzle. The PC's can choose how they learn about the different peices they need, and then through divination, luck, information, or research figure out where they want to go. I'm trying to determine if I'll balance on teh fly, or let them walk into a seriously bad (for them) situation hoping they'll run when it gets too tough.
2) I added significant political elements throughout the realm that are moving in reaction to the change in overall power structure should the PC's accomplish their goal. For each of these groups I had to build out NPC's, associates, motivations, and I planned a timetable into the next 3 months (world time) for what they might be doing. I've developed a calendar structure with key dates and actions that will be taken. Of course, the PC's may or may not affect/change these actions. And if they are in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time it could get very interesting. It will add a significant element of the importance of them staying on task or letting things get out of hand. It will also add some interesting choices for them to try and figure out what's what, and how they'll react.
3) They will probably figure out the BBEG they need to confront sooner than I would have let them learn it my old way, but now the choice will be theirs when they go confront him/her. And of course, thanks to his own spies and actions, he may or may not be ready as well.

It's going to be alot more fun for all of us, and a lot more work up front for me, but I think it will be worth it.

With all this in mind, my response to the original question is that pre-written dungeons/adventures still have a place for many reasons so it's not a problem for me to use them. But the creme-de-la-creme will be when someone writes an epic adventure with all these plot elements and significant freedom for the PC's. It would probably be 200-300 pages though, and I don't know about the economics of it for publishers. Mine is only about 25% finished and with maps and writeups (no statblocks) it's already over 75 pages long.

Moticon.